State to miss out on extra surgeons

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Victoria has received no additional surgeon training places from
the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons for this year, despite
State Government protests and long waiting lists for some basic
surgical operations.

The State Government initially advised the college it had the
capacity for 58 training places and reacted angrily when the
college said that only 48 positions would be made available.

The Government threatened to take "radical" action, including
taking the college to the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission, if more places were not made available.

After further talks, Victoria was awarded 55 places, the same
number it received in 2004.

NSW has been granted 79 positions, 14 higher than the college's
initial offer - and 28 places more than last year. Nationally, the
number of trainee surgeon positions has jumped from 200 last year
to 265.

State Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said she would press hard to
increase the number of surgeon training places in Victoria in
2006.

She said 55 places were the bare minimum and the lack of basic
surgeon training places would have a flow-on effect, with
insufficient surgeons available for advanced training.

Ms Pike described negotiations with the college as feisty, but
said the talks were now back on track to ensure a better outcome
for 2006.

"The system next year will enable us to determine the numbers we
require and can sustain, rather than the college arbitrarily making
that decision which happened this year," she said.

In 2003, the ACCC ruled that the college could retain its
monopoly of training places, provided it reached an agreement with
the states on the number and distribution of trainees.

Ms Pike said hospitals should be allowed to decide how many
surgeons they trained, just as training positions for physicians,
anaesthetists and emergency medicine doctors are already set by
hospitals that had been accredited by specialist colleges.

She said this was a position supported by the ACCC and one
likely to be adopted in determining training places for 2006.

"This is quite a significant change because the College of
Surgeons have been put on notice that the days of the closed shop
are over," she said.

The college's training chairman, Professor Stephen Deane, said
the college had agreed to meet state governments at the start of
each year to finalise trainee places.

A spokeswoman for the college denied that the college had a
monopoly in determining basic surgeon training positions.

She also said that 58 training positions could be available in
Victoria if the State Government would fund the additional three
places.